


Time

by ficdirectory



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Infant Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-19
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2020-01-04 06:23:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18337949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficdirectory/pseuds/ficdirectory
Summary: The unseen moments between Jackson and April from 11x22-11x25 and a bit beyond.





	Time

When Jackson gets up on Easter morning, April’s already gone.  Probably at the hospital.  He stares at the ceiling and tries to speak around the lump in his throat.

He can’t.

What difference would it make anyway?  It’s not like anyone’s here to listen to him.

He’s got a busy day in the burn ICU ahead but he stops first at the cemetery.  They buried Samuel and had a funeral for him.  It was mostly for April, or so he told himself.  But it turned out, Jackson needed it, too.  He needed something official.  Something to help him say goodbye.

That had been the last day he and April leaned on each other.  Looked to each other for comfort.  Lately, she’s been distant.  Angry.  Cold.  He gets it but wishes he could do something.  

She won’t even go in Samuel’s room, and insists Jackson keep the door closed.

Sometimes, he goes in there and sits in the rocking chair when things get to be too intense.  He doesn’t have time for that today, though.  So instead, he swings by the cemetery to lay the stuffed rabbit he bought for eighty bucks online by his son’s tiny headstone.

“Got this for you, buddy.  Happy Easter.  Daddy loves you.”

He gets back in the car and heads to work.  This is the day April finds him and talks to him about going overseas with Hunt.  He’s sure she’s kidding, but, thankfully, doesn’t laugh.  He hears her out.  Her eyes are bright.  She looks excited.  Almost happy.  As close to happy as he’s seen her in months.  

He knows he can’t hold her back.  She has to go.

But he still isn’t quite expecting it when at the end of the month – on her birthday – she’s gone.

–

Memorial Day aches in April’s soul, in a way it never has.  Now, though, it means so much more than a day off, or time and a half at work, or a barbecue with friends and family.  Now she sees, up close and personal, the loss.  She sees the cost of life and limb these men and women sacrifice just to keep her country safe and free.

It’s the least she can do to be here.  To help them in their worst moments, the way she was helped in hers by Dr. Herman.  She draws from Herman’s strength, and from Hunt’s, who is out here serving in the thick of it with her.  

She never would have dreamed that years ago, before her boards, when Hunt made her repeat “I am a soldier!” that she would be this close to war.  By choice.  Because if she didn’t simultaneously do something and get away from the place that caused her so much heartache she would lose it.

April couldn’t look at Jackson without seeing the time they spent together with Samuel.  Couldn’t be in their house without dreading it every time she walked by the closed nursery door.  When her milk came in right around Thanksgiving, April couldn’t stop crying.  It was December by the time it dried up. She finally stopped dreaming she could feel Samuel inside her by the end of March.  When his actual due date came and went, it was like her subconscious knew.  But it turned out, the only thing more painful than dreaming your baby was inside you only to wake up and find out he wasn’t was to stop dreaming of him altogether.  She couldn’t live like that.  

She had to go.

She could tell Jackson didn’t understand, but he didn’t try to make her stay.

This way, she only had to deal with Libby FaceTiming her a couple weeks back about some big gift she, Kimmie and Alice were going to put money toward for their mom.  She had tried, and succeeded at completely blocking out Mother’s Day, until she heard Libby’s accusatory and somehow simultaneously patronizing voice saying, “Ducky, it’s not fair to the rest of us and it’s not fair to Mom that you won’t at least get on board with this.”

“Libby, I’m kind of busy…” April had said brusquely and hung up.  She’d shoved her phone aside and gone to grab a shower, not caring that the water pressure was almost nothing and the water itself ran more cold than warm.  

Of course with her luck, Libby didn’t take a clue and FaceTimed her back…or so April thought until she checked her phone and realized it had been Jackson.  He’d left her a video message, but wasn’t signed on anymore.  

She clicked the picture, and waited.

“Hey…  My mom just called to thank me for the flowers I sent her, and…  I don’t know.  Made me think of you.  Hope you’re okay.  I miss you.”  There was a long pause as Jackson stared past the camera.  “…We’re still parents, right?”

April had felt as if she’d been slapped, but just as quickly, Jackson had shaken his head.  “Don’t worry about it, all right?  Love you.  Be safe.  Check in sometime.  Let me know how you’re doing.”

So, even with this awful loss between them, maybe, Jackson gets it.  That she needs to be out here.  That it’s good for her to be out here.

And Hunt understands.  And that’s something.  He knows what it’s like to feel called to serve.

Now April does, too.

–

Jackson hangs up with April, feeling let down.  He thought she’d at least have some comment about the couch, even if it was to be pissed that he (Warren) stained the old one with Mole.  

Work keeps him pretty busy.  So it’s not like he has a ton of free time on his hands, but when he does get a day off, it’s brutal.  He knows Karev and Pierce were talking about finding some fireworks to check out, but everything’s so low key now.  Without Derek around it’s like they’ve lost motivation to do fun stuff.  Like they lost a piece of themselves.

He can understand that.  

Jackson doesn’t want to hang out by himself at home, and stare at the new couch.  He doesn’t want to think of time passing or things changing or how he never had to baby proof a single damn thing, like Karen warned him he would.  He doesn’t want to think about two weeks ago, when Pierce had charged into work and embraced Webber with a kiss on the cheek and told him, “Happy Father’s Day!  I always get my dad a tie.  It’s a family joke, but I didn’t know if you’d want a tie…or not…so I brought you this.”

Just like that, she had whipped a picture out of her white coat.  “It’s me.  As a baby.  I figured you maybe hadn’t had the opportunity to see many baby pictures of me, so…for you.”

“Well, I’ll be…” Webber had sighed, looking at the picture like he was in love.  It was the same way Jackson and April drank in every detail of Samuel’s features in those few hours.

“Do you like it?” Pierce had asked, biting her lip nervously.

“Do I like it?  It’s a picture of my daughter.  I love it.”

It had been like a damn car crash.  There had been no way for Jackson to look away.  Webber and Pierce’s relationship was so new.  This was their first Father’s Day.  And it didn’t escape Jackson that had Samuel survived, it would have been his, too.  Despite the Mother’s Day message he’d left for April, he didn’t get one in return.

He shakes his head and decides to stop dwelling on what he can’t do anything about.

Instead, he goes to visit Samuel.  He lies on the ground, approximately beside his son and tucks his hands under his head, staring up at the sky.

“Hey, buddy.  So, Mommy’s not coming back for a while yet.  But I’ll be here every chance I get, all right?  I promise.  Tonight, depending on where you are, you might hear some loud sounds.  They’re fireworks, and they’re really cool.  Loud, but cool.  So don’t be scared if you hear ‘em.”  

He pauses.

“Watch out for Mommy.”

–

Halloween in the desert is just like any other day.  The ghoulish traumas keep coming no matter what day it is.  April has built up a pretty impenetrable wall around herself over the last six months.  Nothing gets through unless April wants it to get through.

She calls Jackson less and less.  It’s easier that way.  Samuel’s anniversary is two and a half weeks away and April can’t face coming back.  She has to call.  She has to let Jackson know she’s extended her tour again.

When she gets a free moment late Halloween night, she tries, but it rings and never gets picked up.

Hey, it’s Jackson.  You know what to do.

April waits for the beep and then speaks.  

“Hey.  It’s me.  Just checking in.  I’ll try back when I can.”  Her tone is efficient and clipped.  Cool and somehow lower.  Yang would be proud she finally managed to modulate her voice to something respectable.

She hangs up in time to see Hunt coming walking up.  He’s tired but smiling.  Something good must have happened.

April searches her exhausted brain for what it could be.  “Is Grey home?” she asks.

“No.  I just found this from Torres.  Look at this costume.”  He holds out his phone and there’s a picture of Sofia dressed as some kind of green monster with pink wings and a crown.

An image flashes through April’s mind, of Samuel. A healthy and happy, smiling baby, dressed as Winnie the Pooh.  She imagines taking him Trick or Treating on the farm in Moline.  Her family didn’t go out of their way to celebrate the darker aspects of the holiday, but her parents never denied her and her sisters the opportunity to dress up for a night and get candy from friends at the local Halloween party at church, or from neighbors they trusted.

“Yeah, it’s cute,” she says dismissively, and starts walking away.

“She’s a dragon princess,” Hunt laughs, not even noticing that he’s standing alone.

–

On November 18th Jackson wakes up feeling like he’s been punched.  He looks around.  The bed is empty, just as it’s been for the last seven months.  April’s gone.  And Samuel’s gone.  And Jackson’s here.

His alarm goes off and he gets out of bed.  Gets ready, like it’s any other day – which, of course, it isn’t – and heads out the door.  He drives to Grey Sloan.  Makes it all the way across the parking lot.  Then he stops dead.

Jackson isn’t sure how long he stands there, but a touch on his shoulder startles him and he jumps.

Damn it.

Shepherd.  It’s still weird that she’s the only one.

“What?” he snaps.

“What are you doing?”

He steps aside, as if she’s asked him to move.

“…And why do you look about to pass out?”

“We should be celebrating…” he says, numbly.  

“You wanna sit?” she asks, looking even more concerned.  He must walk over to the bench, because the next thing he knows, he’s sitting on it next to her.

“What do you want?” he asks, scrubbing a hand down his face.

This time, she just stares at him.

“I can’t go in, okay?  Last year, April and I…  We walked in and had a baby…and we didn’t leave with one.  Whatever.  You know?  I don’t expect you to understand.”

Shepherd laughs.  It’s bitter and abrupt.  “Of course you don’t.”  

“Look,” he demands, feeling raw.  “Losing your brother doesn’t make you a damn expert on losing a child!”

“My dead brother has nothing to do with this.  And if you weren’t so presumptuous and let me talk for two seconds you’d know that I lost a baby, too.  I didn’t terminate.  I didn’t miscarry.  I delivered a live baby.  An  _anencephalic_  live baby.”

Jackson’s mouth drops open.  “Your baby had–”

“No brain?  Yeah.”  Shepherd shrugs cavalierly.  “What are you gonna do?”

He can’t believe she’s smiling, but he can see the sadness in her eyes.  He’s silent a minute.  “What did you do?” he asks softly.

“Well, I sure as hell didn’t avoid every single place someone died.  If I did that, I’d never come to work, I’d never go shopping or drive a car…  I’d never sleep.  But I do, because I need to move forward.  I can’t stay stuck in that hell forever.  You get a thick skin losing people over and over.  Maybe this is your first loss.”

Jackson unconsciously nods.  It’s not.  He lost Charles and Reed.  Lexie and Sloan.  But this is the first loss that’s hit him so personally that he feels it in his soul.

“So you stand up.”

He does.

“You breathe.”

He fills his lungs with bitterly cold November air.

“And you walk in there.  'Cause your being there is telling death to go screw itself.  If we stay away, death wins,” she says simply and starts walking toward the front doors.

Jackson falls into step beside her.  Shepherd doesn’t speak again until they’re inside.

“Listen, I’m not a heartless asshole.  I know what today is.  I remember.  Do me a favor and swing by the chapel before you go into work?”

The mention of a place April holds so dear makes his insides seize.  He remembers all to clearly that day and going there on her behalf, so she could find the strength to do the unthinkable.  Jackson doesn’t think he can go in.  But he does.  He pushes open the doors and walks to the front.

He finds a single candle burning.

–

Six months in the desert has taught April that holidays mean very little, but mail and contact with the outside world?  They mean everything.

Hunt’s mom has been so great about sending him care packages.  They come stocked with things they really want:  playing cards, board games, movies and music, books, body wash and sunscreen.  Hunt must’ve passed along that April’s out here, too, because there are female body washes and a few romantic comedies included with all the male stuff.

April appreciates it more than words can say, and when she catches Hunt on the way to make a call to her, April insists he also thank her profusely for the care package.  It’s been a life saver for all of them.

For once she can shower and smell fresh for at least a little while before the heat becomes unbearable.  It’s a small luxury, but April is determined to make the most of it, carefully rationing out the body wash, praying it lasts however long she’s here.

“Come on.  We’re going to base,” Hunt says after a particularly brutal and busy day.

It isn’t until she steps into a large dining hall and inhales deeply that she remembers.  It’s Thanksgiving.  She had completely forgotten.  But she gets in line and can’t believe their luck.  It brings tears to her eyes.  How long has it been since she’s been able to enjoy air conditioning and a hot meal?

She blinks and roughly wipes a hand across her eyes.  Convinces the rest of them it’s sand, which they’re covered in, no matter what.  

The days run together so much here.  April barely has time to register a day or a season.  Only calls from home or special events like this remind her.  She focuses on right now.  On the laughter of everyone around her.  Not on last Thanksgiving, which had been agonizing, and not on home and family, which were all connected to that agony.

She has family here.  Self-made family.  Family who don’t see her as a fragile, should-be mother, but a competent, confident trauma surgeon.

It’s what she needs.

It’s who she needs to be.

–

Jackson spends all of Christmas Day on the phone, even though it’s a holiday and no one seems to know anything.  He hadn’t been able to sleep last night after their call got cut off by explosions.  He has no idea if April’s still alive.  But wouldn’t he be able to feel it if she were gone?

He’s glad he went out earlier yesterday to the cemetery to decorate a little tree for Samuel.  It’s not much, but they don’t have one in the house.  Christmas was more April’s area, and more a kid-friendly holiday.  Jackson had been pretty sure that the sight of a tree every day for weeks would do nothing but remind him of all the people who weren’t here.

At least he’d gone to Karev’s last night and sort of enjoyed himself before that call.  It had been kind of nice to see everybody and have pizza and mock Karev’s pathetic tree.

He and Shepherd pretty much avoid each other these days.  Ever since his weird freak out last month, he hasn’t really felt like looking her in the eye.  It’s fine, because she’s been burying herself in work and doesn’t want to talk about anything that matters.  

Jackson blinks and focuses as the canned music and automated voice indicating that he’s now been on hold for 49 minutes stop abruptly.  He’s been disconnected.

Damn it.

He looks at the few wrapped gifts at the foot of their bed.

Where is April?

“I know it’s not your job, Samuel, but please.  Look out for her?”

–

It’s a new year and April’s grateful to be alive.

There’s something visceral and all-consuming about thinking you’re going to die.  You go into this survival mode, and nothing else matters.  She’d felt it once before, held at gunpoint at 28.  April had done everything in her power to save her own life and it had worked.  But that night?  That Christmas attack?  April had thought of nothing but protecting her patients.  

She does her job well and thoroughly.  Says brief, silent prayers over the bodies of the dead, because her faith has slowly reemerged over these months.  Only it’s not a shield she carries to protect herself from the world as it had been for so long.  April knows, like it or not, the world gets in.  Now her faith is an integral part of her.  It’s a quiet strength.  She has gotten to know Jesus on such a deeper level in the middle of the desert than she ever had inside four walls of a church.  She has a Bible tucked in her pocket, and spends any downtime reading it and having quiet time.

She has memorized whole passages and they bring her comfort in the midst of hopeless situations.  

It makes her wish she had let Jesus be closer when she really needed him last year.  Still, she has been reminded that God never promised a life without trials.  He did promise, though, to walk beside us in the midst of them.  

And hadn’t he?

Hadn’t he been there all along?

–

When April comes home unexpectedly on Valentine’s Day, it shocks the hell out of Jackson.  It had been almost two months with no news at all…and then suddenly…there she was.  They spend the first day barely out of each others’ sight.  They are constantly holding each other.  April’s scanning for him all the time.  Or so he thinks.

“Babe?  I’m right here,” he says, as he comes back from the bathroom.

She shakes herself.  “Right.  I know.  It’s just…gonna take a while for me to get used to civilian life.”

April doesn’t sit back on the couch like she used to.  She keeps sitting forward, like she can’t relax.  She’s not used to the quiet and keeps scanning for danger.

He talks to Hunt, but he just tells Jackson to give her time.  And he will.  Of course, he will, but it’s been a long year.  He tries to just be glad she’s back.    

After that first day, they don’t touch.  In fact, Jackson is struck by the sheer number of things that don’t happen now that April’s home.  She doesn’t wake up screaming at night.  She doesn’t fall headlong into depression.  She doesn’t get angry.  But she also doesn’t talk.  When he presses her to tell him something – anything – she surprises him.

“Being back…it’s hard to explain to someone who wasn’t there.  I went on a mission trip once, and when I came back, I experienced some pretty major culture shock.  I’d get overwhelmed at how much food there was in grocery stores.  Things like that.”  

It’s still hard for him to get used to her speaking voice again, because it’s not how he remembers it.  It’s lower.  More controlled.  He kind of loved how she used to wear her heart on her sleeve, but he loves this new April, too.  It doesn’t escape him just how many times his wife has been destroyed and been forced to renew herself.  Even her name suggests renewal.  “It’s like that now?” he asks quietly.

“No.”  She shakes her head.  “Nothing’s like this.”

“I was thinking of going out to visit Samuel.  You wanna come?” Jackson offers.

A wince of pain crosses her face and just as quickly is replaced by an impassive mask.  “I can’t.”

“Okay,” he says, dropping a kiss on the top of her head.  He tries not to feel hurt.  But he can’t deny that they have always filled the empty places in one another and balanced each other out.  In the presence of her emotional wall and distance, Jackson is raw and aching.

He wonders if this is all there is for them.

–

April feels more at home with Hunt in that trailer of Derek’s in the middle of the woods than she has in months.  They drink and talk, and it’s easy.  God, she misses easy.  It’s not that she wants to date Hunt.  He’s like her brother.  She just misses being around people who get it.  Who understand what she’s been through, because they’ve also experienced it.

“I just can’t get used to it here…” she admits.  “It’s like most of me is back there, and what’s here of me just doesn’t fit anymore.”

He’s quiet and nods but doesn’t speak right away. “Re-entry is tough.”  He tips his beer and drinks.  “It helps to have someone who was there with you.  I had that with Altman.  Now, I have it with you and vice versa.  You’re not the first person to come back changed from overseas and you won’t be the last, but you’ve got to lean on people.  You’ve got me.  You’ve got Avery.  You’ve got your coworkers.”

“It’s not that,” she waves a hand in the air as if to swat away an insect.

He cocks his head and waits.

“I don’t want to readjust to life here…I think…I wanna go back.  But I talked to Jackson, and it…” She shakes her head and grimaces.  “He says I haven’t asked him how he is in a year.”

“Have you?” Hunt asks, no judgment.

“I can’t remember, so probably not,” she admits.  “He’s probably right to not wanna wait for me if I go again.  But I hate having to choose.  I hate ultimatums.  …I tried to talk to Arizona, and just lost it.  I can’t choose.  And I can’t talk to Jackson about this again.  He started out so understanding.  He wants me to go.  But how can I go if he won’t be here when I come back?”

“Maybe you need some help with this,” Hunt suggests.  

Now, it’s April’s turn to look confused.  She watches Hunt reach for his wallet and produce a weathered business card.  

“Dr. Katharine Wyatt…” April reads slowly.  “You think Jackson and I need a shrink?”

“I think it couldn’t hurt.  For what it’s worth, she really helped me.”

It takes her weeks to bring it up with Jackson, and when she does, April simply asks, “Will you come somewhere with me?” and then leads him to Dr. Wyatt’s office over their lunch break at work.

It doesn’t take long to figure out that the two of them are mired in issues.  April’s adrenaline is pumping as she says: “I can’t move forward if I know you won’t be there when I come back.”  She feels like a stuck record, repeating the same panicked words and hoping for a different result.

Jackson puffs out a breath.  “See?” he says, looking to Dr. Wyatt.  For what, April isn’t sure.  “When you come home, you’re assured that I’ll be there.  The possibility that I won’t scares the hell out of you.  It stops you in your tracks.  I feel like I don’t have you when you’re there, and I don’t have you when you’re here.  You’re just wishing you were back out there.  Somewhere I am nowhere near.  I get that you’ve been through a lot, but how is it fair that you get all of me but I get none of you?”

Dr. Wyatt raises a hand to interject.  “April, would you say that’s accurate?”

And she surprises them both when she says, “Yes, that’s accurate.”

By the end of the session, April’s exhausted, but determined.  They have assignments.  Jackson’s going to work on asking for what he needs and April’s going to somehow work on opening up.  They’ll come back next week, and for however many weeks after until they have reached a solution.  They’re not allowed to discuss April’s wish to leave again outside the office.  Still, it’s hard to avoid.

“I don’t wanna do this if it’s going to cost me you, Jackson.  But I feel like I’ll go crazy if I stay home.” April exclaims over dinner, after they’ve been seeing Dr. Wyatt for three weeks.

“And that’s exactly why we’re talking about it, right, with the doctor?  So we can come to a decision that both of us can live with.”  He’s so calm, and she finds that, for the first time, it centers her, instead of making her irritated.

She nods, and takes a breath.  “Do you…need anything right now?” It sounds stilted and awkward, not genuine in the least even though April means it from the deepest part of herself.  She’s intent on keeping up her end of the assignments.  She has a small notebook with her goals mapped out on each page.  Each day, when she’s able to check them off, she feels satisfied, like she’s accomplishing something.

“I need to hold your hand,” he says plainly with his eyebrows raised.

She extends hers to him, palm up across the table and waits.  He looks her in the eye and she nods slightly.  He nods back and gently threads his fingers through hers.

They’re in bed together, and it’s dark when she reaches for him, and whispers in his ear.   It’s been five weeks since they held hands at the dinner table and they are making slow, but steady progress.  She finds asking Jackson point blank what he needs, the way he does for her, is what works for him.  In return, when he checks in with her, she does her best to be honest.  Still, in the months since she’s been home, she’s never been able to open up quite like this.  It feels safe in his arms, though, where no one might overhear and mock her weakness.

“I don’t want to lose you.  I’ve seen so many people die.  Good people.  Innocents,” she says, speaking of Samuel, but in a way that won’t cause her to feel like her heart’s being ripped out.  It’s been 20 months since his death, and April is finally able to come with Jackson to the cemetery, but she isn’t yet able to get out of the car.  “Losing you doesn’t feel like some unfounded fear.  It feels like an inevitability.  So, the more distant I am….”

“The less it’ll hurt…” Jackson whispers back.

“Yeah.  I know it’s not fair to you, I know…  It’s not right.  I love you.  So much.  And I care about how you feel…  It’s just so hard for me to show it.”

Jackson’s quiet, but the pattern of his breathing lets her know he’s still awake, just listening.

They are making so much progress, even without discussing the eventuality of her leaving or not.  It would be a shame not to give Jackson the one thing he has told her he wants.  It’s so simple.  So, she takes a breath, and tries, ignoring the way her heart speeds up and her palms start sweating.

They do need this.  Both of them.

“How are you…with Samuel and everything?”

Jackson sighs, as if relieved.  Then, he takes a deep breath, and starts to speak.


End file.
